Producing an effective electronic document is a challenging task for even the most gifted writer. A variety of software tools have existed for a long time that may increase an author's productivity while also improving the aesthetics of a document, such as spell-checking and template tools. But no matter how well intended an author may be, many scenarios exist where a resulting document is passed over, skimmed, or otherwise fails to have an impact on the end-user consuming it.
In many cases, a document may lack impact due to having characteristics that are inconsistent with the preferences and limitations of the end-user consumer. For example, a word processing document written in a semantically complex manner in one language may be difficult for an end-user to consume whose primary language is not the same. In another example, the font, spacing, and other layout characteristics of a document may make it difficult to consume for a dyslexic end-user.
From a more technical perspective, computing and communication resources are wasted when ineffective documents are produced. Emails that someone took time (and processing resources) to produce are deleted, attachments are ignored, and storage space and bandwidth is consumed in the meantime. In the aggregate, less-than-effective electronic documents strain both the productive capacity of humans and technology alike, and from both the authoring and consuming perspectives of document production and consumption.